Discuss VirtualBox 3.0 Release

[sandervl]

This topic is for discussions about the VirtualBox 3.0 Release as announced today. The release includes some major functional enhancements including support for guest SMP; OpenGL 2.0 for Windows, Linux and Solaris guests; and experimental support for Direct3D 8/9 applications on Windows guests.

For discussions on 2.2.4 see Discuss VirtualBox 2.2.4 Release.

[sej7278]

huh? its gone from 3b2 to RELEASE?!

shared folders seems to work with smp now.

the ubuntu 8.04 links are broken btw.

[Perryg]

I did the upgrade (not uninstalling first) to see if it would work and it went flawlessly.
Opened the VM's that I usually run 24/7 and they seem to be doing as they should.
Also noticed the ribbon at the bottom on my seamless Ubuntu, cool. I also like the idea that I can turn this off if I want, very cool.

[Entity]

I didn't think it would be released so early.

Ok, I'll try it, let's hope I don't regret it...

EDIT: damn, multi-cpu won't work on window guests that already were installed without io apic. Is there any way to update the windows kernel to the io apic one?

[HipHoppity]

Upgrade from VBox 2.2.4 to version 3.0.0 went smoothly on Mac OSX Host (v. 10.5.7). Guest Additions install went great as well. With a big upgrade like this I was happy to see my guests still running quite snappily -- whew.

Thanks for keeping VBox easy to use and fast!

[Sasquatch]

I didn't think it would be released so early.

Ok, I'll try it, let's hope I don't regret it...

EDIT: damn, multi-cpu won't work on window guests that already were installed without io apic. Is there any way to update the windows kernel to the io apic one?

Check the manual, you can enable I/O APIC on Windows without issues, but disabling it when it was installed with it enabled, will be catastrophic.

[MasterEvilAce]

Install went fine on Windows 7, including guest additions (XP).
The release seems surprisingly fine right now, despite the mass of changes/improvements

Lots of GUI changes. How exactly do the virtual cores work? I have an i7 which had 4 cores. I set the number to 4, yet XP's task manager only shows 1 CPU graph, still.

[Perryg]

You will need to install the SMP kernel in XP.
Google install windows XP smp kernel.

[Entity]

I didn't think it would be released so early.

Ok, I'll try it, let's hope I don't regret it...

EDIT: damn, multi-cpu won't work on window guests that already were installed without io apic. Is there any way to update the windows kernel to the io apic one?

Check the manual, you can enable I/O APIC on Windows without issues, but disabling it when it was installed with it enabled, will be catastrophic.

I've done so, but it seems to not have effect: windows xp still shows one core.

You will need to install the SMP kernel in XP.
Google install windows XP smp kernel.

Thanks, I'll check that.

[Sasquatch]

When I upgraded the processor on my own system, XP found the new processor and it's second core automatically. After the new processor was installed, I got the SMP kernel automatically. I do have XP Pro VLK, which might act differently than XP Home.

[howard_tc]

My existing Solaris (OpenSolaris, Solaris, SXCE) Guests won't boot on my Solaris Host -- I made another post about this in the OpenSolaris Host Forum.

[AntiMatter]

Using VirtualBox 3.0.49315 (release). Host = WinXP, Guest = Win2003 x32, newest Guest Additions installed.

In the VM settings, Floppy is unmounted. In the Guest, Windows Explorer shows Floppy A: in the left pane. Is it intentional or bug? Not really a big deal, just want to know. Thanks.

[MasterEvilAce]

You will need to install the SMP kernel in XP.
Google install windows XP smp kernel.

I used the first result ( http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=373627 )
I ran into a few issues, but for the most part it works.
What I did differently:
1) I had to use the command "expand" rather than "extract"
2) I had to also "extract" or "expand" the hal.dll file. ( “expand x:\i386\hal.dl_ c:\windows\system32\hal.dll” )
I got an error otherwise stating the file was missing. This maybe wasn't entirely needed, as I didn't notice until now that instruction #6 has a space before the file name (I copied and pasted).. which I believe caused an issue with extracting the halmacpi.dll file correctly. Either way, I'd suggest doing the hal.dll as well unless you are good at recovering files from outside of windows

After doing that, I can now see 4 cores in task manager.

Using VirtualBox 3.0.49315 (release). Host = WinXP, Guest = Win2003 x32, newest Guest Additions installed.

In the VM settings, Floppy is unmounted. In the Guest, Windows Explorer shows Floppy A: in the left pane. Is it intentional or bug? Not really a big deal, just want to know. Thanks.

The floppy drive is still "attached".. Mounting your floppy drive means a "valid floppy" is inserted. Unmount/ed means there's no floppy drive, or you are ejecting the floppy. The same goes for the CD drives. Mounting an image to your CD drive means you are taking an image file such as an ISO and mapping it to the virtual CD drive (the equivalent of inserting a CD)

[rgalvan]

I have installed VirtualBox 3.0.0 on my MacBook with OS X 10.5.7, 4 GB of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M.

After some tests with the beta versions, I have recovered my original WinXP SP 3 guest image used only with VBox 2 and I have installed (in safe mode) the new guest additions.

There are still some big problems (also present in the beta) with dxdiag:

- DirectX 7: sometimes test test fails with an error code (OK, not spported) but in the other case the VM crashes !!!

- DirectX8 : sometimes the test fail with the following message (in Italian language):

Test non riuscito al passaggio 4 (EnumAdaptersMode) : HRESULT 0x8876086c (Codice errore)
My translation of the above text: Test failed on phase 4 (EnumAdaptersMode) : HRESULT 0x8876086c (Error code)

In the other cases the VM crashes !!! (except 1 time when the test was ok, but I'm unable to reproduce this situation ...)

- DirectX 9: the virtual machine crashes !!!

It seems impossible to use it ...

Another problem: in the GUI, when I try to insert the digits to set some parameter value (e.g. the RAM size), the keyboard is ignored, nothing is written, only the BackSpace key is working ...

Are these problems related to Mac ? Should I open the tickets ?

Log of VM crash:

[ravynmagi]

I upgraded from 2.2.4 to 3.0.0. No apparent problems initially.

My host is Windows 7 x64. My guests are also Windows 7 x64.

I started up the virtual machine. Windows detected a new CPU and prompted me to reboot, which I did.
After reboot I installed the Virtualbox Guest Additions 3.0.0 and enabled Direct3D. Rebooted again.

I tried to enable Aero on Windows 7, because was told my drivers do not support this.
Next I tried to run a DirectX 9c game. VirtualBox crashes everytime I launch it.

Finally I went into my guest settings and moved the Processors slider over two 2 CPUs.
Started up the Windows 7 x64 guest. I see the Windows logo it almost looks like it's starting up, then the screen goes scrambled and the machine hangs. IO APIC was enabled.

So far none of the major new features in this release have worked for me. I'm going to try installing a new Windows 7 machine next to see if that makes any difference.